Madness in Death
by Eccentricity97
Summary: Relationships come unraveled as Loki's death travels through Asgard, leaving Thor, Sif, and even the human Jane Foster wondering where their true loyalties lie.
1. Afterthoughts in Grief

Orange. Blue. Purple. Pink. White. She tried to catch all the colors of the setting sun as it fell. If she could somehow catch something of beauty, all of it, as it descended from existence, then maybe her absence at his death would be forgiven. _Death_. The word caught in her chest as it pulsed unbidden through her mind. _Death_. Her hands tightened on the balcony railing. _Dead_. She gazed down at the whitening knuckles, and the bulging veins in her forearms that Loki had once told her made her look like a man. _Loki was dead_. She had missed the ending of the most beautiful, glorious sunset her eyes had ever seen, and the last thing she'd ever said to Loki was a threat. What made matters worse; they had both known in that moment that she'd meant it.

"Sif."

Sif turned suddenly around, pulled out of her grieving mind to face Eir. Her mother, with her soft face and graying hair, opened her arms to encompass her daughter. Sif hesitated a moment and wondered whether her mind's deepest thoughts would be safe with the woman whom she so resembled. Or would she be judged, reviled for having loved such an unbalanced madman?

As Sif looked into Eir's bright hazel eyes, the eyes they both shared, all doubt was erased. This was her mother she was thinking of. She was the definition of her name. _Mercy_. She was the one person Sif had always gone to when her mind was beginning to fray at the edges, save for only two others, one of whom was now dead. She propelled herself into Eir's arms. Arms which held her steady, despite their age and acquiring softness. Sif would seek comfort in her mother, this much was true, but she would never, ever cry. That was weak. And she could not afford to be weak. She had begun to think that the solace of fresh tears would never be allowed to her again.

A gentle knock echoed on the bed chamber door, and Sif rose cautiously to open it. There were only two people who ever called on her this time of night. She silently reminded herself that the hand belonging to the caller could never be attached to the body she so longed to see. She braced herself as she opened the door, looking up into the fallen face of a large, muscular man with thick golden hair and twinkling blue eyes. At least, they seemed to be twinkling. No, glistening seemed to be the more correct term. Sif rushed him in without a second thought.

"Thor," Sif said hurriedly, thinking rapidly of a way to distract him from whatever he was about to say. She did not think she would bear to see him cry. "Thor, I'm so…"

"Jane's gone," he said quietly, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. "I sent her back to London. She's going to stay there and continue her work. I told her I'd return, but I'm truly afraid that I will not be able to face her again."

Sif quietly let out a relieved sigh. Jane. That stubborn, useless lump of a woman that Thor had fallen for two years before. She could definitely handle this. It was widely known by all of her friends that Sif had not liked Jane from their first meeting. They all had thought it was jealousy over her relationship with Thor. But unknown to anyone but herself, was her true reason. She was jealous of her fragility. The way Jane could stand there, and be as delicate and innocent looking as a lily. The way her profile was unassuming, unintimidating. The way that men looked at her and felt a need to protect her.

Nobody felt they needed to protect Sif. She was strong, muscular, a warrior. Beautiful, yes, but incredibly intimidating. As a child she'd been stubborn and hardheaded. She could hold her own better than most men. But she wished for once to be protected. She wanted to know what it felt like to be weak. But according to everyone she knew, she had no weaknesses. Loki had understood her that way; in the time before he'd gone mad with jealousy, he'd always understood what it was like to be looked at as something one is not. Maybe he'd still known it, even as he was dying. Thor had told everyone that Loki had died with honor, saving Thor from one of Malakith's Dark beasts. It seemed he'd attempted to show everyone what he really was, aside from a Frost Giant. Sif tried to take comfort in that.

"Thor," she said, taking one of his large calloused hands and gently leading him to sit on her bed. He sat with a thud, rocking the bedframe. "Please, tell me what is troubling you, brother?"

The son of the King looked at her with swimming, piercing blue eyes. "It was my fault. I used him. He was my brother. _My brother!_"

Thor slammed a massive fist against his leg, shaking the bed again. "What have I done? What have I done…?"

The golden haired warrior put his face in his hands, shaking his head wildly. Sif, desperately afraid of seeing tears, hastily wrapped her arms around man. She buried her face in his broad shoulder, stroking his hair and attempting to calm him.

"It was no fault of yours," she said calmly, her gentle hands rhythmically stroking his hair. "You gave him a choice, and he made it himself. You said it yourself; he died with honor. He died for you."

Thor shook his head, which was cradled against her chest. "That is not so."

"Of course it is," Sif comforted, pressing her face against the man's golden mop and sighing. "He loved you…"

Thor sat up abruptly, cutting her off. "It was not for me!" he snapped, and then immediately looked apologetic for the outburst. He hung his head low, and Sif cradled him again. His voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke again.

"Loki did not die for me," he said, shaking his head slowly. "He told me that himself. And I do not think that it was all truly for honor. I think it was for our mother, and for Jane."

Sif's mind blanched. The name seemed to have sucked the breath from her lungs. Jane? _Jane? _ A black hole was beginning to open up in her mind and chest. She struggled to compose herself as she imagined Loki, lying with Jane as he had with her, in a time before jealousy and war and Frost Giants and the Dark Elves.

"That cannot be," she said softly, flailing desperately through her mind for something to quell her grief and anger. "That is not true. For the Queen, I do not doubt, but for—"

"I want it so desperately to be false," Thor said, his rich voice on the verge of cracking. "But I cannot convince myself that—"

Sif jumped up from the bed, releasing Thor, pointing a finger at him. "It is not true!" she cried, flames burning her vision and causing her eyes to water. "Don't you dare say that! Loki was many things, but he would never, _never_…" she lost her concentration in her hate and dismay.

Sif turned away quickly, blinking furiously to hide her tears. Jane had the protection of everyone in Asgard, but she could _not _have the one thing Sif had always had to herself. She could not have pulled Loki away from her. She could not, she could not, she could not…

"Sif…?" Thor called softly and cautiously out to her, and she heard the creak of her bedframe as he stood. She barely felt the warmth of his rough, calloused hands as he slowly turned her to face him.

"Sif," he said, his hands resting gently on her shoulders. "I do not believe that Jane would ever have taken up with Loki. It is not in her nature. They'd seen each other but once, and Loki's demise came shortly after. What I confess is that my brother, in the short time that we spent in that dark place, came to care for Jane in a way I thought he'd only cared about himself. He was many things, my brother, but not an adulterer."

Sif's breath slowed slightly, and she pushed her hair from her face. She looked up into Thor's sharp blue eyes, and saw grief and jealousy and every other brand of pain that she felt in herself. The urge to embrace the man before her suddenly surfaced. She wanted to somehow physically pull the pain out of the Prince's large frame, throwing it from them both. The urge was so strong she had already put her hand up to caress his face, feeling the soft golden stubble beneath her fingers. Thor closed his eyes and placed his hand over hers, sighing softly. Their faces inched closer together, until Sif could feel the heat of his body against her chest through her nightgown.

Thor's eyes opened suddenly, and he jerked himself back from her, very slightly. Sif pulled back as well, her eyes downcast.

"Goodnight, dear sister," Thor mumbled gently, leaving the room with a softness that belied his large figure.

"Goodnight." said Sif, latching the door shut behind her, blinking back tears of anger.


	2. Exfoliation

**Note:** _Hey everyone! Here's a cute chapter I thought of to introduce you all to Jane! I really love the reviews, keep it up! OxOx_

A flash of lights and color at warp speed, and she was back in the Waiting Room. At least, that's what she called it. Earth, Midgard, the Waiting Room, they were all the same thing; the place where she moped around and waited for her big blonde hero to come calling for her again. She wondered sometimes if the only way Thor would come to see her is if her world was in mortal danger. It was pretty daft of her to think that he'd actually want to see _her_, right? Jane Foster set down the book she was reading and looked out of the window of the tiny apartment she was renting in downtown London.

"Where are you?" she wondered softly to herself, wrapping her gray cardigan more tightly around her midsection and secretly hoping somehow Thor had miraculously heard her. She turned around and headed toward the kitchen, absorbed in her morose thoughts. Just as she reached the fridge, she heard the front door slam open, making her start and hit her head on the top of the inside frame.

"Jane?" Darcy's nasal voice echoed into the sitting room. Jane's body relaxed, and she rolled her eyes at her assistant's rather theatrical entrance.

"Jane," Darcy called again, her footsteps moving closer to the kitchen. "I have some great news!"

Jane closed the fridge door and stared at the young brunette in the kitchen doorway. Her red stocking cap and light brown coat were slightly damp from the drizzle that had been persisting all afternoon, and in her arms were a multitude of odd miscellaneous looking objects. Jane peered at them all, a growing sense of dread in her stomach. She found a bucket of ice cream, and an exfoliating face mask kit within the large pile. As Darcy began sitting her things down on the kitchen table, Jane also saw the corner of at least ten DVD cases within a large carry-on bag the young woman had brought.

"No," Jane said desperately, realizing what Darcy had been planning. "Not a—"

"Girls' night!" Darcy said excitedly, drowning out Jane's protests of "No Darcy! This is a bad idea, please don't!"

Darcy ignored her friend and boss's protests and began to organize things on the table, laying out the ingredients for the face masks and setting out DVD titles. Among them Jane saw _The Breakfast Club, The Notebook, _and_ He's Just Not That into You. _

"Darcy, why are you doing this?" Jane asked, walking into the sitting room and flopping onto the sofa. She covered her eyes with her hands as Darcy explained her reasoning.

"Well, after that great adventure where we single-handedly almost destroyed and then saved our universe from those weird aliens with the corn rows, your prince charming flew off into the sunset—without you." Darcy began mixing up the face mask mix in a bowl as she walked in and plopped down next to Jane, who was still covering her face. "And I figured, what better way to get over a 'sort-of-break-up-not-quite-really-sure-what-it-is' than acting like a teenage girl?"

"I don't know, maybe doing something not quite so juvenile and immature?" Jane sighed, finally removing her hands from her face and staring down her assistant, an irritated expression marring her features.

"Oh come on, Miss 'I'm-An-Adult-So-I'm-A-Boring-Bitch'! We both know that we didn't do this in high school—we were too weird. Or at least I was. You were probably as boring as you are now. Now we have a chance to do it! Come on, let me just put some…" Darcy proceeded to liberally swipe a large mint green glob of face mask mix on Jane's face.

"Hey!" Jane sputtered as the gritty stuff knotted strands of her hair together.

By the end of the fight, the mask was exfoliating the walls as well as their faces.


	3. Rights and Secrets

He'd done it. He'd fooled _everyone. _How simple it had been to trick his golden oaf of a brother into believing that he was advising Odin! Wait a moment—Thor was not his brother; they had never been brothers. Loki brushed his midnight colored hair from his eyes, lounging within his father's previous living quarters. The only one who would have really known what was going on with Odin gone was Frigga, and she was dead. The hard notch that had formed in Loki's heart after her death hardened at the thought. It was best not to think of painful things, though in his perfect disguise as the All-Father, he could grieve as openly as he liked. Loki rose from his lounging chair and Transformed. He'd always loved the feeling of the Change; it was like a shimmering golden sheet falling gently over him. His whole body tingled and glowed when it settled. It was like nothing he could accurately describe.

Much like the human Jane Foster. Or Sif. The two were so completely different, yet they conjured the same feelings within him. This odd fluttering, mind numbing and confusing heat of the entirety of one's self.

Sif had always been a secret, because it was no secret that Odin had already matched her with Thor. Loki had jealously coveted the warrior woman; knowing that she wanted to belong to him was more than gratifying; it was bliss. Finally, someone who saw past his lack of sheer physical brutality, and truly understood his tricks. She was like a kinder, more beautiful extension of himself.

It had taken a while to come to that point. As children, he had been quite unkind to Sif, calling her a man and telling her that no one wanted to marry someone as frightening as she. But she persisted with her kindness, and the world's lack of tenderness seemed to have pushed him to her. Like it had been inevitable.

Jane was hidden down in his deepest heart, even deeper than Sif. The feeling of her soft hand still made his heart shudder in longing, even though it had come to him in violence. She was so beautiful, so delicate. Someone that he could protect, someone that could make him feel powerful. It pained him that he could never have her. She really _did _belong to Thor, and was henceforth forbidden to all.

But was she?

He was now Odin! Ruler of Asgard! The All-Father! Could he not take whatever he wanted? Was it not his right as King of Worlds? His Odin mask grinned menacingly before he composed himself, hooking his cape around his shoulders and heading towards the Great Hall, a plan already stirring in his Trickster's mind. As he reached his throne, he heard footsteps.

It was Sif, her strong shoulders slightly slumped. She bowed in respect as she approached the throne. Loki nodded slightly, and beckoned her to stand. Sif sighed before she spoke, as if she had to force herself to open her mouth.

"Your Grace, I come with a request," she began, and she suddenly turned her eyes downward.

"Look at me child," Loki said, trying to be gentle yet firm with the young soldier.

Sif looked up once more, her hazel eyes shining just ever too brightly. She started again.

"I come with a request that…that…that I be relieved from my duties for the time being. I am not in my right self, and I am afraid that I may be a danger to my comrades. I plead for your consent." Sif dropped to one knee, and Loki had a feeling that she only did it for a chance to avert her eyes from him.

"I do not understand," Loki said, sitting up straighter in his throne. "What has happened to make you so sure of this? How could you possibly be a danger to—"

"Grief," Sif said bluntly, angling her head up so that Loki could just see her eyes. "All of our losses have taken a toll, and I do not want my heart to impede my head or my fellow warriors."

Loki paused a moment. Grief? How could Frigga's death still be impeding her? Like most of the kingdom, she should be in silent vigil, and no more. It wasn't like his loss; he had lost a mother, the one person he knew cared for him. Why should Sif feel this sadness so deeply still? Why-?

The idea hit Loki like a wave of golden bricks. She was grieving for _him. _He had forgotten that all of Asgard thought him dead. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, and stood from the throne.

"Come, soldier," he said bluntly, walking toward the direction of the Great Library. He did not have to hear Sif's footsteps to know that she had obeyed his command.

There were researchers within the aisles of books, but Loki ordered them out with a flick of his hand. When he was sure he and Sif were alone, he closed the doors tightly and approached her.

"I do think I understand now," he said softly as he stood in front of her, willing her head to turn up to face him. "But grieve no more."

She looked up just in time to see him transform. Her eyes widened as she gazed upon Loki's true form, tears rolling down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, but Loki put a hand up, silencing her.

"Hello Sif," he said, a smirk sneaking its way up his lips.

"Loki. I—I—"Sif faltered for a moment before slapping him across the face.

Before he could get his bearings she embraced him, her soft, warm, familiar lips caressing his. He wrapped his arms around her, his height allowing her to rest against his chest.

"Trickster," Sif mumbled.


	4. Consideration

_**Note:**__ Sorry for the wait! My computer is down, so I've been doing this from the school library. Ha! Anyway, here's a brief look at what rolls through Thor's mind when he isn't drunk or in battle. Enjoy! xoxo_

What he wouldn't give to touch her again. Thor curled his large hands into fists, angry that he would never be able to truly have the woman he loved. Not only were his Princely duties keeping them apart; Jane was human. He would long outlive her, even without her stepping into mortal danger every chance she got.

Desperate to clear his mind, Thor went to the training yards. He took one of the hammers, not his own but good enough, and threw it, striking it against a large target that stood at a seventy foot distance. His throw crumpled the red painted iron and steel like Styrofoam. After a few more shots like this, he felt immensely better, though he worried about repairing the training targets. He brushed off the petty thought and decided to go about the town, maybe stopping for a few pints before making his way back to the Palace.

He met Volstagg and Fandral on his travels, and they seemed to think some ale was in order. At one of the smaller pubs within the city square, Thor ordered a large tankard of the spiced drink, more than twice what Volstagg and Fandral could consume together. The barmaid set it next to the table in a huff, irritated when Volstagg only distractedly handed her a piece of silver for her work.

"Hey there, old friend," Volstagg said, stroking his beard and looking quite worried. "What has been troubling you?"

"Yes!" Fandral said, a laugh edging in his voice. "You can't expect us to carry you home after this!"

Thor refused to make eye contact with them, swirling his overlarge drink with a thick finger.

"Come now," Volstagg tried gently, moving closer to Thor. "We are only but your oldest friends. You make me consider otherwise if you cannot place your confidences in us."

Thor took a large mug and dipped it into the tankard, downing it in one.

"I must confess," he said, rubbing his stubbly golden chin. "I feel as though my heart lies in a place far outside my reach."

"Ah, the girl!" Fandral said, laughing outright this time. "The little human that—ow! What did I—ow!" Fandral moved his seat as far as he could from Volstagg's large feet and menacing glare.

"I share your sympathies, my friend," Volstagg said kindly. "But there is one _here_ that awaits you. One that you can share a long, full life with. One that cares about you more than she'd daresay."

"My heart belongs with Jane," Thor said, weary of the argument that'd been going on since he'd met the human woman. "Sif is my sister and comrade in battle, but I can never see her as more than what she is—a friend. I'm sure she will find someone well suited to her someday."

Fandral sighed, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up onto the table top.

"You don't see well, do you brother?" he asked mockingly, ogling a passing maid as she walked by. "She doesn't just fancy you as a lover. She _loves _you. I reckon she's been dreaming about you since we were children!"

Volstagg sighed, dipping his own mug into the tankard.

"All I'm saying is to consider it."

Thor's head hurt with confusion. He had left Fandral and Volstagg in the training yards, where they were drunkenly sparring. He planned to consult his father, though he knew that he would surely gain the same answer that he'd gotten from his friends. He strode into the Great Hall, only to find it empty. Not that it was unusual, Odin had been spending more and more time in his chambers since Frigga had died. Thor decided against approaching his father in such a private setting, when he knew how much grief the All-Father was carrying.

He sighed, headed back out to town for another tankard.


End file.
